Man, I wish I could just change the rules every time someone threatens to challenge me on anything. “Actually, no, sir. You may have written that coffee was $4.30 but see how I’ve just crossed out the price on the menu and replaced it with $1? I’m paying you $1. Pfft, never mind your reasoning behind the $4.30 or the consequences of my actions on your current staff.” Or, “Man, I know that you can probably prove that the ocean has water in it but I totally don’t want to think about how small and inadequate and possible incorrect that makes me and can you imagine all the textbooks we’re going to need to reprint and all the angry people who are going to yell at me, again? Actually, this whole thought process has been really inconvenient and expensive. Nope, I decree that the ocean is made up predominately of luminescent aardvarks and that you can never bring this up again. Oh and the nature of the ocean is a topic of national security and the space in which we become who we are as a nation so, no, really don’t bring it up again.”

Immigration and Border Protection workers will make decisions that affect the safety, rights and freedoms of individuals as well as trade and commerce in Australia. They will hold a privileged place at the border and in the community, with access to secure environments and law enforcement databases. They will also exercise significant powers under the Customs Act 1901 , Migration Act 1958 and Maritime Powers Act 2012 and other Commonwealth law, such as detention, arrest, boarding a vessel, entry, search, questioning, seizure, use of force and removal from Australia. The community and government trust Immigration and Border Protection workers to exercise these powers reasonably, lawfully, impartially and professionally.

The Bill, therefore, contains a number of integrity provisions to increase resistance to criminal infiltration and corruption and to enhance government and public confidence in Immigration and Border Protection workers, as well as the confidence of other partners including intelligence organisations and foreign governments. The Bill also includes provisions that enable the setting of standards for a highly trained, disciplined and flexible workforce.

Australia’s choices to date in how it manages its borders and those individuals who choose to enter them have resulted in:

The above events came into public scrutiny due to journalism, whistleblowing, senate inquiries and lobbying. Are these the actions of government and industry that deserve trust and confidence? Or these?

The government’s commitment to secrecy should be a concern for everyone. Secrecy is completely inadequate for democracy but totally appropriate for tyranny. If the minister will not inform the public, then we are within our right to assume the worst. No free and fair nation operates with secrecy as a blanket policy position. Democracies are based on the foundation of public scrutiny and open government.

Malcom Fraser

If, “in short, our border creates the space where we can be who we are and become who we want to be as a nation,” we should not keep what happens in that space a secret.

Survivors and descendants of the massacres tell their stories through interviews and re-enactment. The documentary provides eye witness accounts and family stories of events that many records of the massacres leave out. The wikipedia entry for the Coniston massacre as of today mentions only briefly one survivor and instead leans heavily on accounts from the various trials and official records of the time. It’s in need of an update to include the well documented oral history accounts of the massacre.